Saludos Compay kicks off the Saxapahaw Octoberfest lineup from 4:00 - 5:20 pm. The band will take quintet format featuring Erich Lieth (piano), Pablo Valencia (guitar/voice), Robert Cantrell (congas), Lisa Lindsey (saxophone), and Arturo Velasquez (percussion/backing vocals).
The last outdoor party of the season? Rain or shine, no dogs allowed, and as always at Saxapahaw, admission is FREE; donations for are accepted for the musicians.
Fiesta Latina features live performances starting at 7:30 pm with Colombian harpist Pavelid Castañeda; my Independent story on Pavelid in June links to performance videos and a closer look at his Camac Electroharp. Headliner UNC Charanga Carolina plays the last hour from 8:30-9:30 pm, and dancers will be encouraged to take to the open dancefloor. Foodtrucks will be onsite selling dinner options from 6:30 on.
Fiesta Latina is FREE and the public is invited. It will be the 5th year for this community celebration in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, which is not just an enrichment opportunity for DA students, but a serious bid for membership in the wider community.
BRING YOUR PROGRAM from Fiesta Latina to get a $5 door discount at LA EXCELENCIA. La Excelencia doors open at 9:30, and the first set won't start before 10:30 pm, so you will have plenty of time to make your way to official afterparty at Fred Astaire Studio.
Aggressive salsa dura, barrio-style, is what La Excelencia promises:
Musical director Gary Núñez @ Friday's performance at the Meadow Stage.
Not heeding the "No Smoking" sign (back right), Marcos Lopez and Gabo Lugo turned up the heat Saturday.
Plena Libre's second show Saturday (10/9) at Shakori Hills didn't disappoint. I had my eyes peeled for a repeat of this tune, "Flores," because it featured percussion solos by young talents Marcos Lopez on timbales, and Gabo Lugo on congas. Sure enough, this bit was more extended and even hotter on Saturday, with a jumping crowd packed in within arm's length of the Dance Tent stage:
Victor Velez with pandereta, the drum of plena.
Victor Velez and Chris Nuñez
Shakori People:
Plena Libre's Rafi Falu gives festivalgoer Emma Blackwell a spin on the dancefloor.
Zoe and Josh: Josh is in a marching band and brought his tuba out to Shakori just for fun.
Here's a quick update on Plena Libre, who played a great first show at the Meadow Stage last night, dishing a healthy fusion of Puerto Rican bomba and plena with salsa, rock, and Latin jazz.
Band member updates: Since their last Shakori gig in 2008, Rafi Falu continues on requinto, the lead drum in plena. Also returning are Kali Villanueva and Victor Velez, both of whom are lead vocalists. Singer Pole Ortiz isn't back though; he left Plena Libre to form his own band. (According to Victor, it's called SalBomPlen, and the two groups performed together recently in Puerto Rico.) Bassist Gary Nuñez still leads the group, and his son Chris Nuñez completes the plenero lineup.
Kali Villanueva and Victor Sorpresa Velez; Gabo Lugo on congas
There are some new faces from last time, notably, two formidable young percussionists who are current students at Berklee: Marcos Lopez, timbales, and Gabo Lugo, congas. (If I got the story right from Victor, Marcos is a grandson of Sammy Ayala.)
There were two trombonists (and I missed one's name--TBA). One of them, Jerry Rivas was showing me his with a "Thayer trigger" (if I got that right), which gave his tenor trombone a deeper sound. This small variation was cool and reminded me of the conch shells sometimes played in bomba. Jerry studied music at the Conservatory in Puerto Rico, and says this style of trigger is favored by classical players. (He also had a nifty electronic tuner that clips on to the bell, which he was using backstage.) I was also meeting keyboardist Jonathan Montes for the first time.
There's nothing like a Shakori crowd, they are open to anything. It doesn't take lessons or even a partner to dance to the "free plena" of Plena Libre. At the end, the guys jumped into the crowd to get us singing call and response style into the microphones.
If you have never experienced live plena, I recommend you check out the Puerto Rican roots fusion band Plena Libre at Shakori Hills this weekend, with two performances Friday (10/8) and Saturday (10/9).
Latin dancers, this won't be your usual salsa gig, but you WILL get your dance on moving to plena, an energetic rhythm indigenous to Puerto Rico, which you will recognize as a spice note in Nuyorican salsa. Check out my review of their performances two years ago* at the same venue.
Getting sweaty with Plena Libre: lead drummer Rafi Falu @ Shakori Hills in 2008
It's rare enough to get a touring band from Puerto Rico in our area, and to hear the music of plena is real opportunity. (For more background on plena, see my feature in the Independent on Miguel Zenon.) Plena Libre is one of the island's top bands popularizing this street "folk" music in modern, innovative form, with the horns and percussion sound of a big salsa band.
The festival, on a giant farm in Pittsboro, is a place to really get away from it all and let your hair down, a four-day feast of music in all genres across multiple stages, with diverse and high quality food and arts vendors. See the Shakori Hills website for a full schedule, directions, and ticket info. LINKS: Shakori Hills Grassroots Music and Dance Festival
Charanga Carolina is a UNC performing ensemble made up of students and guest artists from the community. Like a sports team, the roster varies year to year based on student enrollment and graduations. We're lucky to have a few key players back in Charanga this fall (Caity Bunch on flute, Alex Williams on piano, and Ryan Raven on trumpet, among others), as well as a whole new crop of student Charangueros.
With more trumpets than trombones this semester, however, director David Garcia has rotated timba charts out of Charanga's book, for the time being. "To play Los Van Van, you really need the 3 trombones," David says.
What emerges stronger this season are the strings, with 5 strong players in the violin section. What better way to showcase this than by playing danzón, the original mainstay of the charanga orchestra, and the genre from which later developments such as the mambo and the cha cha chá emerged.
With its slower tempo and more classical sound, danzón may seem like a staid alternative, but it's an important building block in the history of Cuban music, and still forms the basis of many Latin jazz compositions to this day. Playing danzón well is challenging, because there's not much cover for the musicians, and its rhythmic shadings have their own subtle idiosyncrasies. Danzón builds slow, but the groove payoff in the end is large. Hear a modern echo in the cha-rock slowcookers of the 60s and 70s, songs like "Cocinando" ane "Oye Como Va"--based on rhythms that originated, in the way-back time, with danzón.
Charanga Carolina did an impressive job last Sunday, therefore, with their first public performance of this classic danzón "Angoa" at Chapel Hill's Festifall.
"That was the first time I've ever heard live danzón, and it made my day," said dance aficionadaAmanda Jackson.
Other new charts in the book this season: an Arsenio Rodriguez son, "Blanca Paloma," and a conjoined version of "Guantanamo" and "Me Voy Pa' Moron." As a dancer, I can tell you these two-for-one charts are heaven to dance to. Thanks, Charanga! Keep up the good work.
Next performance of CHARANGA CAROLINA:
Saturday, October 16 at 8:30 pm at Durham Academy's Fiesta Latina. Free and open to the public! Not only that, but your Fiesta Latina program will get you a discount at the door to see New York salsa band La Excelencia at Fred Astaire studio later that night, which is the official afterparty of DA Fiesta Latina.
Charanga Carolina performs Sunday (10/3) at 4:45 pm on Franklin Street, near Graham Street intersection, on Festifall's Main Stage. The free outdoor arts festival runs through 6 pm today.
Says director David Garcia:
"Our set list [Sunday] will include Cuban danzón and son as well as salsa from New York and Puerto Rico and merengue from La [Republica] Dominicana!"
UNC's Charanga Carolina dir. David Garcia
Charanga Carolina already played their first concert of the fall season in September, at NC Central's Hispanic Heritage Month celebration. Here is the first public performance of one of their new charts this semester, Eddie Palmieri's "Lo Que Traigo Es Sabroso":
Quintessential L.A. Latin rockers Ozomatli bounce in to Memorial Hall tonight, with a fresh, exuberant new album and street cred intact. Fire Away is everything you love about Ozomatli, but boppier and more politically engaged than ever.
Smart music never felt better. Their anthem to equal marriage rights, "Gay Vatos In Love," hits up nostalgic 60s R&B, while other tunes put fresh twists on Ozomatli's global grab bag of samba, ska, salsa, cumbia, punk, ranchera and world rhythms.
"Are you living out your dreams, or simply coasting?" asks the heart-racing "Malagasy Shock," based on a real-life, near-death experience the band experienced recently. [READ MORE at Nat Geo's album preview]
Los Angeles celebrates "Ozomatli Day" on April 23, but Chapel Hill gets its shock treatment TONIGHT, Friday (10/1) at 8 pm at UNC Memorial Hall.
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